Le Clos de la Meslerie: Wines
The harvest at Le Clos de la Meslerie takes place in the cool hours of the early morning, and the hand-picked grapes are transported to the cellars in small trays, arriving within one hour of having been picked such is the proximity of the vineyards to the cellars. The west parcel tends to be picked first, followed by the south parcel, and then the north and east parcels. The old vines and young vines from the north plot are picked separately. The small plot of vines just in front of the château is always the last to be picked. The fruit is harvested in tries, and so the team will go back and pick through the earlier parcels again, with two or three tries being the norm. The aim of the second pass is obtaining optimal maturity rather than richer or sweeter fruit for a sweeter wine though. The yields are naturally very low, as is often the case with organic domaines. The volume of the 2013 vintage (which to be fair was one marked by some difficult weather phenomena), for example, was just 14 hl/ha.
The fruit is pressed using an ancient vertical press which Peter found buried deep underneath some old tools and other winemaking paraphernalia inside the dilapidated chai he had acquired. Having inspected it, along with friend and mentor Vincent Carême, the two decided it could be restored. By the time the first fruit had been picked in 2008 the press was in full working order (pictured above, although here it has been dismantled for maintenance and cleaning), and it is the only press here, Peter having long forgotten about his original intention of purchasing more modern pneumatic equipment. One advantage of using a hand-operated vertical press, says Peter, apart from the novelty value, is that the pressing is inevitably very slow and rather gentle, thus yielding smaller quantities of finer juice.
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